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How is the woman's voice portrayed in literature?

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We cannot identify a single “woman’s voice” in literature. The woman's voice depends on the situation, character, plot, and sometimes genre. Elizabeth Bennet dares to speak her mind, but Isabel Archer stifles her voice and stays in a loveless abusive marriage. Female characters in Virginia Woolf’s work inhabit a different time and society and have a different voice. In feminist literature, the woman’s voice decries women’s lack of voice or agency in real life.

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We'd caution against trying to confine a woman's voice in literature into a one-size-fits-all definition. A woman's voice depends on the woman speaking. Not all women speak alike.

Think about Jane Eyre. She has a strong, willful voice. She speaks her mind to Mr. Rochester and St. John Rivers. Then there's Bertha Mason. She's confined to Mr. Rochester's attic. She doesn't have a voice; although, she is allowed sounds.

There's also controversial voices like Kathy Acker or Valerie Solanas. These voices articulate violence and new forms of sexuality. For more sexual voices, there’s poets Anne Sexton and Sharon Olds. There’s also the diarist Anais Nin.

There's confident voices such as Sylvia Plath. Maybe you've read "Lady Lazarus". In that poem, she boasts:

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

Plath was also quite controversial. Many writers and scholars have been critical of how she...

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includes the Holocaust in her work.

There's also abject, alienated voices. You might hear sorrow in the voice of contemporary poet Claudia Rankine, especially if you read her poetry collection Don't Let Me Be Lonely.

There's also young and hopeful voices, like those of the friend group in Jacqueline Woodson's novel Another Brooklyn.

There's severe, mysterious voices with poets like Emily Dickinson and Emily Bronte (a poet and the author of the novel Wuthering Heights, respectively).

There's voices that love learning and reading (see Maya Angelou's autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings). There's voices that love commotion and chaos (see Kay Thompson's Eloise books or the novels of Virginie Despentes).

As the above hopefully demonstrates, there's myriad types of women's voices. They contain an array of concerns, aims, and feelings.

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There is no one “woman’s voice” in literature, just as there is no one man’s voice. The character’s voice depends on the situation, character traits, plot and sometimes the genre. In fiction, there are many well-known female characters who have different voices. For instance, Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice dares to speak her mind and to refuse Mr. Darcy's first marriage proposal even though he is wealthy. She puts her happiness and loyalty to her beloved sister Jane above any material considerations, unlike her friend Charlotte, who marries Mr. Collins even though she understands him to be her intellectual inferior.

On the other hand, there is Isabel Archer in Portrait of a Lady. Isabel possibly stays in a loveless and somewhat abusive marriage even though she has the means to leave because she respects her marriage vows and to protect her stepdaughter. These are two well-known female literary figures that have a sense of independence and strength, yet ultimately have different “voices,” just as the female characters in Virginia Woolf’s work have a different voice because they inhabit a different time and society.

There is also the woman’s voice in feminist literature such as The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. These female authors decried women’s lack of voice in real life and expressed this in their writings.

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Your question is not quite clear.

Do you wish to know how women are represented (their characterization) in literature, or how female authors represent a feminine point of view, or whether the number of female authors are representative enough to have a voice and if so, do they represent or deal with issues unique to women - do they stand up for women?

If you've answered 'yes' to the first part of the question, then one needs to explore how women have been characterised throughout literate history. One has to delve into the history of writing from the earliest manuscripts to current writing.

Obviously, the manner in which women were, and are presented, will match the norms, standards, cultures and beliefs of the period in which the writing was done. What is also important then, is the geography (setting) during the period, since different ideologies were, and are, applicable during different periods and the writing would reflect this discrepancy.

If your answered in the affirmative to the second part of the question, it should be clear that female authors would more than likely offer an alternative perspective and opinion regarding events and experiences to that of a male writer. In this sense then, the author would be representative of the "woman's voice."

This, however, is not to say that male authors did or do not provide a voice for women in their writing, or that female author's strictly only represent a "woman's voice", since numerous male and female authors represented both a male and feminist perspective in their works, irrespective of their own gender.

If your answer was 'yes' to the third part of the question, then yes, women have played a significant role in literature to be deemed as having a "voice." We have had many female authors (too numerous to mention for this response) who have achieved much and have succeeded in their craft - winning major awards and enthralling the world with their invigorating and intelligent writing.

One can mention the Bronte sisters, Anna Sewell, Mary Shelley, Harper Lee, Maya Angelou, Olive Schreiner, Jane Austen, Irma Bombeck and many, many others who have been, and will be, "the woman's voice in literature" for time immemorial.  

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